Monday, December 15, 2014

My friend Shae, who I know from my days in the University of Mississippi Gospel Choir, recently made this post to Facebook. Her daughter is in hospital and is going through a tough time. I wrote to Shae and asked if I could share this on the blog. She wrote back:

Yes sir you most certainly can!! Those are my miracle babies!! The boys are twins and they were born autistic. The doctors told us that they would probably not ever talk or function. They couldn't talk until age 4! They have always been able to sing praises to God tho!! Sarah was born five years later and she completed the sound!! They have been singing in harmony since she was 2!!

This testimony of family and of singing God's praises together moved me to tears.

It is the sound of community that defeats isolation.

It is the sound of hope that overcomes despair.

It is the sound of love that heals the sick.

As I preached the other week:

The Song became flesh and dwelt among us and the deafening silence could not overcome it.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Last week I had the pleasure of leading the singing and preaching at the Well--a mid-week worship service held in the chapel at Ashland University. Lights are usually dimmed and guitars and drums are usually cranked up as over 200 students sing contemporary worship songs. Last Thursday night was a bit different -- not only was their usual worship leader replaced by an old(er) religion professor, but I persuaded the sound team to use minimal sound reinforcement (omni-directional mics rather than running instruments directly through the board)--something Red Team has been working with for the last three years. My reason was to place the focus firmly on the singing. AU's Miller chapel has wonderful acoustics for singing and that's what I wanted. I rehearsed all the musicians once (but not all at the same time!) and we set off!

I have a few observations from the evening:It is hard to think of Christmas without singing. It may get more commercialized every year, but we know Christmas should involve singing. This connects with my next point . . .Christmas is about community - you can't really do Christmas on your own. This is odd because we certainly think we can do Easter on our own. No one says, "Poor Dr. Slade, he has no one to spend Easter with this year." Perhaps the Easter hymn "I come to the garden alone" is responsible. But Christmas, on the other hand is about community. and it is an intergenerational community -- we want the children singing and the grandparents too.Contemporary Praise & Worship music doesn't satisfy the needs of even the most 'contemporary' congregation. People want to sing the familiar Christmas carols. This is worth thinking about because in many churches there is almost a complete absence of traditional hymnody the rest of the year. I would hazard a guess that these are some of the reasons:

Folks intuitively know that if you want to sing songs together then you need to sing songs that everyone knows. This requires a repertoire that you repeat.

We want to get in touch with our memories of Christmases past, particularly the Christmases of our childhood. For some reason at Christmas we understand what liturgical scholars insist we should do all the time: connect with the continuity of the church worshipping through the last two millennia.

Christmas carols are nearly all story songs and Christianity is, at its heart, the proclamation of a story: an outrageous and incredibly unlikely story. Interestingly the popular contemporary praise and worship songs do not (as a rule) tell stories, they proclaim emotion (worship, praise, adoration, wonder etc.). But at Christmas we need the story as well.

There are Christmas carols that rejoice in the revelry, feasting and joy that follow on the heals of really good news . . . I would hazard a guess that that is completely absent from any song in the CCLI charts!

One of my students captured a snippet of us reveling in the good news of the Christmas story - more hootenanny than Hillsong!

Speaking of the CCLI charts -- I did include its #1 song "10,000 Reasons" as it includes a theology of singing that I really like and I knew this congregation of students enjoy singing this song; however, I wanted to include more of the Story in the song for this carol service. My friend Pete Clapham in England helped me out by writing a new verse.

As shepherds heard
The angels singing,
Now we rejoice
And we join with them.
Ten thousand echoes
Of the heavenly choir
Swell to crescendo
“Peace on Earth today!”

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Whether I felt like it or not, I have been attending Sunday morning worship at a range of different churches for over thirty years. I have sat through inspiring sermons and tedious sermons and sermons that did not even deserve the name. I have been in big churches, small churches, black churches, white churches, charismatic churches and un-charismatic churches, missional churches and "omissional" churches, churches that were thriving and churches that were disintegrating.

My point is that I have seen a lot of church.

One thing I have observed is that when a congregation feels it is struggling, when people feel unhappy with church, it is often expressed as dissatisfaction with the worship music. Worship music becomes a lightning rod for congregational discontent.
If young people are not coming to the church then it must be because of the music.

If I am not feeling inspired during worship, it must be because of the music.

Sean Palmer, a church of Christ minister in Temple, Texas wrote a very interesting piece, "Singing as a Spiritual Discipline" that identifies this very problem. He diagnoses this tendency as an expression of our individualistic approach to our faith.

Our corporate/common singing, regardless of the musical style of our congregation, is still viewed by too many as an individual pursuit. This is odd, because we can’t do corporate singing alone. We just wished the songs were picked and sang as if corporate singing existed for us alone.

Don’t believe me? Do you know anyone who left their church because of a change in “worship?” In truth, these changes are barely changes in worship. Most churches still celebrate the Eucharist, engage sermons, sing, pray, and – sadly – have announcements. What changes is the singing! And the reason people leave over “worship” is because they no longer “like” the singing…personally.

I would add that discontent strikes at music because that is an area that a congregation believes it can change. A church might be stuck with its pastor, with its aging demographic, with its poor location, with its dwindling finances, with its deficient theology, with its lack of commitment, but it can pick different songs!

Sociologist Gerardo Marti in his study of music in multi-racial churches, observed that in an exercise as fraught as nurturing a multi-racial community in which so many factors are outside the church leaders’ control, the pastor and the elders can control “the construction of participation through worship music” (15). Marti contends that this ability to control the musical content can lead to the mistaken belief that just by playing the right music the right way a church can determine the racial constituency of the congregation — a kind of “play it and they will come” mentality. What he discovered from his research in California was that it is the practice of making the music together, rather than the type of music being made, that actually proved to be most significant.

Perhaps drawing from his background in the Church of Christ where worship music is unaccompanied singing, Sean Palmer comes to a similar but more spiritual-sounding conclusion. His prescription for the problem: the church needs to rediscover congregational singing as a corporate spiritual discipline. Palmer suggests that doing so would have five consequences; I particularly like his first two:

We Wouldn’t Expect Immediate Results. No faithful practitioner of spiritual disciplines expects to walk in, practice a discipline for an hour, and leave humming a tune and tapping their toes. In the realm of spiritual practices we know that the blessing is found in the practice itself. You could practice contemplative prayer for years without any tangible outcome, uplifting feeling, or goosebumps, but you come to love and enjoy practicing the presence of God.

We Could Sing On Behalf Of Others. There are songs I hate, like “Amazing Grace.” I’ve never liked it, but I know “Amazing Grace” is tremendously meaningful for others. A friend recently shared with me the place of the song “Amazing Grace” in the recovery movement. The song means a great deal for members of AA and other recovery groups. Those folks are in my church. As a spiritual discipline, I can sing that song – though I despise it – on their behalf. I sing, therefore, not because it’s efficacious for me, but those around me.

I am reminded again of my favorite John Wesley quote:

“Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a single degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find it a blessing.”

“Directions for Congregational Singing” in Select Hymns, 1761.

Or put another way: When the going get's tough the church gets singing (together)!

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

David Neff has some good words to say about congregational singing in an article over at Christianity Today. He is affirms what many of us know, that congregational singing is a central practice of the church. He offers this good advice:

Allow people to listen to themselves and their neighbors. Our voices should not be overwhelmed by the band or pipe organ. Some of the best congregational singing is a cappella, because unaccompanied singing lets us attend to the voices of our neighbors. In addition, our voices shouldn't be muted by dead acoustics. We are all tempted to sing in a tiled shower. Conversely, nothing discourages singing like an acoustically dry, carpeted worship space with low ceilings and padded pews

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Church musician and fellow traveller Wendell Kimbrough has posted his new album Hymns & Friends over on bandcamp -- you can stream the whole thing and even pre-order your own copy. Wendell is the musician at the Church of the Advent in Washington D.C.
I love what he says about the hymns he has recorded:

I have heard 20-something young professionals and retired grandparents sing these songs with equal love and enthusiasm.The hymns on this album also transcend musical styles. Their basic components—text, melody, and harmony—are so well built that they can be led by choirs and pipe organs or by guitars, bass, and drums. When sung in the Spirit’s power, they can shake the walls of cathedrals or bring a living room full of people to a foot-stomping crescendo.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Contemporary Hymn writer Keith Getty offers some advice on congregational singing in a blog post Five Ways to Improve Congregational Singing. He has just returned from a tour that involved meetings with pastors and worship leaders. Reflecting on this he makes the observation that I myself have made and that never fails to amaze me:

In each of those leadership events, I posed the question, “What are the things you ask yourself on Monday morning, in reviewing Sunday’s services?” Generally, the responses centered around production values, stylistic issues, people management, pleasing the pastor, or finishing the service on time. I do not recall that any one asked, “How did the congregation sing?”
It seems curious that in a generation that has produced innumerable conferences, articles, blogs, and even university degree programs on “worship,” the topic of congregational singing hasn’t been raised more often.

He then offers his five suggestions--check them out for yourself. He concludes with this suggestion:

Why not in 2014 begin the Monday morning review by asking, “How did the congregation sing?” and, “How can we help them do it better?"

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Singing "If I Had a Hammer" at a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Rally in Greenwood, MS, 1963.

I woke up this morning to the news that Pete Seeger had died. He is, perhaps the biggest influence on me as a singer and leader of songs. If you have time, I recommend you watch the documentary film Pete Seeger: The Power of Song; it is a tribute to his life and will inspire you to song and action.As I bounced around the internet watching YouTube clips, I found this example of the song he made ubiquitous: Michael, Row the Boat Ashore. Just watch the joy in Seeger's face when the audience really starts singing and he can step away from the microphone and join with them as their voices resound off the walls.

I found myself reworking In paradisumfrom the requiem mass. It is my prayer for Pete Seeger: Pete, may singing angels lead you into paradise; upon your arrival, may the martyrs join the song and lead you to the holy city of Jerusalem. May the choirs of angels receive you, and with Lazarus, once a poor man, may you have harmonious rest.